You've just completed training for, and racing in, the biggest racing event of the year. Now what? Matt Dixon explains the importance of giving your body a proper rest, and how to go about doing so.

Following Chris Lieto's breakthrough second-place finish in the 2011 Ford Ironman World Championship, I received a lot of questions about what we changed in his training, or what the magic ingredient was that elevated his performance so far beyond what he had achieved previously. The long answer would take many pages, but I kept finding myself coming back to this: Chris stopped talking about recovery and started actually doing it. While every athlete pursuing optimal performance must put in very hard training, the effectiveness of that training (some would say the secret ingredient) is dependent on how well he or she recovers.